


The Devil Within

by darkxximagination



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-31
Updated: 2016-09-05
Packaged: 2018-08-12 06:02:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,147
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7923340
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darkxximagination/pseuds/darkxximagination
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU in which Will is a psychopath and Hannibal ends up being dragged in his dark world after becoming his new therapist.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

When you have a mental illness, people just assume you are insane. They won’t say it to your face, though. They act nice and understanding, to make you feel as if you are not alone, but that just makes you feel lonelier. You can read through their cheap masks. Their smiles and kindness stink of compassion and pity. For me, at least, it was always that way.

I woke up sweaty that morning, with the sheets tangled around my body and my pillow on the floor. It had been an agitated night. The memories of the nightmare were still hunting me and I pressed my palms on my face, but that helped nothing. Molly, my girlfriend, was not next to me. I liked her presence, but somehow, it was a relief to wake up alone. She’d worry if she saw me that way. Just the thought of it made me roll my eyes. I didn’t love her but she loved me and her feelings were uncomfortable. I wished she’d just enjoy our time together without dragging emotions into it.

The clock red 9:34; it was early enough. I got up and headed towards the bathroom, taking my shirt off while walking and dropping it somewhere on the floor. A nice, warm shower was what I needed. I was always able to wash off all the pain and the memories each morning after waking up. Just let them slide off together with the soap and water and disappear until the next day. It was my way of coping, my own form of therapy. That is why I took my time with the showers and baths and never rushed them, like most men do.

There were many things about me that were not manly enough, but I liked to blame them all on the fact that I was bisexual. I hated to think of myself as being weak. I thought I was a strong person and that my sensibility when it came to different subjects or situations was all because of my sexuality. It was a lie and I knew it but I liked to indulge in it.

It was past 10 when I finally got in the kitchen, fully dressed, with my phone in my hand. I fed my dogs and made some coffee before sitting down at the table and lighting up a cigarette.

“Good morning,” I said in the phone, taking a long puff from my Red Marlboro. I had to call her, though I really didn’t want to.

“Hey, baby! Did you just wake up?” 

Her voice was as cheerful as always. I was happy she wasn’t there to see me cringe. “Yes.”

“Did you sleep well? Did you dream anything?”

I paused for a moment and played with my cigarette in the ashtray. A part of me wanted to talk to someone about the dreams, but Molly was the last person on Earth I’d share them with.

“Will?”

“Yeah, I’m here. Just thinking. I did sleep well. I don’t remember what I dreamed, though.” Lying was in my nature and she had no idea. She was too stupid to see through my lies.

“I miss you a lot. I am sorry I had to leave so early.”

“Don’t worry, I was fine. I miss you too.” That was also a lie.

“I will be there tonight. Will you go see your doctor?”

“Yeah. I have to go see her in about an hour. I’ll just drink my coffee and leave.”

One of my dogs came next to me and rubbed his head against my leg. I turned my gaze towards him and smiled, placing the phone between my head and my shoulder and freeing my hand so that I could caress his head. I cared about those animals more than I did about her, or any human for that matter.

“Are you sure you are feeling alright?”

“I’m fine, Molly. Stop worrying so much. If anything was wrong, I would have told you.”

She laughed. “You’re right… Sorry." 

She began talking about her work and I pretended to listen. I wasn’t paying any attention to her, though. Her voice was like the sound of an old radio playing silently in the background. Winston was far more entertaining.

"I love you, Will,” I heard her say.

Molly and I had been dating for over a year and I guess that’s long enough to fall in love with someone. She would often say those words to me and I never replied. I think she thought I loved her too and that I was too shy to say it. Shyness had nothing to do with it, just like the sweet man she thought I was had nothing to do with me.

"I have to go or I will be late.”

“Alright, go. Take care! I will see you tonight.”

I rolled my eyes and hung up, placing my phone in one pocket and the cigarettes in the other before leaving the house. I was addicted to nicotine but I never saw it as such a big problem. There were worse things in my life than that. I was messed up. The visits that I had to pay to my therapist three times a week reminded me of it constantly, as well as the medicine I always had to take.

No one had been able to tell me what was truly wrong with me. I had been going to doctors ever since I was a teenager and my diagnosis always changed each time I changed the clinic. I had been told that I have everything in the book: depression, anxiety, antisocial behavior, different types of personality disorders. A doctor once even suggested that I might be autistic. It still amused me to think about it. The truth was, they just didn’t know, and that was fine with me. The only reason I kept going was because I found it entertaining and because my doctor was really hot.

Her name was Alana Bloom and she thought I was just traumatized by my past. She didn’t understand me at all and she was about as able to help me as a lamb would be when trying to care for a hungry wolf. However, she listened to me, never judged me and, sometimes, the advice she’d give me was rather nice. Not to mention how fun it was to see what she’d wear every day.

The ride there was as boring and uneventful as always; half an hour of driving through the annoying Baltimore traffic. The clinic was not too far from my house and if it wasn’t for all the other cars in front of me, I would have made it there in ten minutes. There were times when walking there was faster than taking a car.

I opened the door without knocking when I got in front of her office, since we knew each other good enough already to feel almost as friends. She never asked me to be overly polite. Stepping inside, I felt a mixture of confusion and frustration. I thought I must have been either too early or too late, because Alana was not the one sitting down behind the desk. It was a man.

“Who are you?” I asked.

He smiled and got up. “You must be Will Graham. I was waiting for you. Have a seat.” He had a strong, foreign accent.

I closed the door behind me but didn’t move from my spot. I stared at him, observing him from head to toe. He was wearing an expensive three piece suit and his short, dirty blonde hair was combed on the side. He was older and taller than me, elegant and imposing. Just by looking at him I knew that he wasn’t going to be as easy to fool as everyone else from my life.

“Who are you?” I asked again. “Where is Alana?”

“My name is Hannibal Lecter. Doctor Bloom had some problems to solve, I’m afraid, so she will be gone for a few weeks. Until she returns, I will be replacing her.”

His voice was calm, leveled. He was looking straight at me. He didn’t seem to be lying, but even so, something in me didn’t want to believe him. “She should have told me.” I took a step forward and took my phone out.

“She did say you would be hard to work with.”

I looked at him coldly, without replying. I disliked him already. Something about him made me feel uncomfortable, but I had no idea what. I looked through my contacts until I found Alana’s number and I called her, turning my back to the man.

“Hello, Will.”

“Where are you? I am in your office and you are not here.”

“My brother has some problems and I am with him right now. I would have called you to tell you, but it all happened very quickly. Doctor Lecter will replace me, so do not worry. You can do your therapy with him until I return.”

I chuckled nervously. “You’ve got to be kidding me.“

"I am really sorry, but my brother needs me. Please, trust my colleague. He is a great doctor. He will take care of you. I promise it will be fine. You can call me whenever you want if you need anything.”

I sighed. “When will you be back?”

“As soon as I can. It won’t be more than a month or two.”

“Okay. Thanks.”

That day was officially screwed.

I hang up and dug my phone back in my pocket, before turning around to face the man again. My new doctor… Again. Another one. It would have been funny if it wasn’t irritating. I thought about leaving, but I was curious to see what he was going to say. Alana had told him I was hard to work with. What else did she tell him? How much did he think he knew about me?

“Is everything alright now?” he asked

I nodded and walked to the chair in front of the desk, sitting down. He smiled and sat down as well. “You don’t talk much, do you?”

“Not if I can avoid it.” I pulled out a cigarette and stuck it between my lips.

“I would appreciate it if you didn’t do that,” he said, right when I was about to light the cigarette. “Doctor Bloom might allow her patients to smoke in here, but I find it rude and unpleasant.”

I stared at him while pushing the cigarette back inside the pack. His voice was just as emotionless and monotone as my own, even though he smiled quite a lot. Usually, in my interactions with everyone, I felt in control, like I held all the power in my hands. It was easy for me to read people, to know what they thought and felt, while they knew nothing about me. I couldn’t read him though. He was a blank book and there was nothing more intimidating than that.

“I’ve read your file,” he started, taking his eyes away from me and looking down at some papers. “You’ve been in and out of therapy your entire life.”

“I move a lot.”

“You don’t think this actually helps, do you?” He was stating it, more than asking me. “This is just a game for you, fueled by curiosity. It entertains you to find out what people think about you.”

I laughed but I was not amused. “You’re pretty good. So you think there’s nothing wrong with me?”

“Oh, I believe there’s plenty wrong with you. I just don’t think you see it. And, quite frankly, I don’t think you care.” He could see through me. I hated that. I hadn’t told him anything and he already knew too much. “What others think of you is unimportant, Will. The way you view yourself is what matters most. What do you think your problem is?”

“Being here,” I answered. “I think I should go.”

“Why? Because someone might actually be able to help you for once? Is that concept threatening? Or is the possibility of being known what scares you?”

‘Who is this guy?’ I felt cornered. I wanted to get up and leave, but my body refused to move. I was intrigued. For a moment, I wondered if Alana had just invented that entire story about her brother so that she could have a reason to pass me over to Hannibal. She had been working with me for a long time with no progress at all. Maybe she was getting tired of me or maybe I was just being paranoid.

“Alright,” I said, shifting in a better position in the chair. “I’ll stay.

He smirked. “Great decision. So tell me, Will. What do you feel?”

“Right now or in general?”

“In general.”

I shrugged. “Mostly bored. Irritated, sometimes. Tired. I don’t sleep well.”

“Nightmares?” He asked. I nodded. “I’ve read in your file that you have a history of child abuse. Are the nightmares related to those traumatic events?”

“Sometimes. Other times – most often – they are not about what happened to me, but about what I wish would happen to others. What I wish I’d do to them.”

“Are they violent?”

I thought about one of the dreams that I kept having for the past few weeks, in which I was hurting Molly. The things I would do to her were always different, varying from punching and kicking her to slicing her throat open, but the result was always the same: her dead and me feeling a great satisfaction. In reality I had never hurt her, but in my mind, I had killed her hundreds of times. “Very,” I answered.

“Are you angry in those dreams?”

“Never. I actually feel an amazing calm in all of them. I also feel calm when I wake up, though they trouble me a bit.”

“Do they make you feel guilty?”

I shook my head. ‘Guilt’ was not the proper word to describe it. “They make me feel dangerous.”

We gazed at each other and I tried to figure out what he was thinking but the only thing I could read was interest. He was interested in me. Fascinated, even. I wasn’t sure if it was me as a person that fascinated him or if it was just my sick mind or whatever illness he thought I had. It didn’t matter to me anyway. What I wanted was to trap him, to unfold him and make him drop his guard and fall under my control. I liked doing that with everyone, but the desire was a lot stronger with him, because I knew it was going to be difficult. There was nothing I loved more than a good challenge.


	2. Chapter 2

The sight and smell of a crime scene would probably repulse most people; the corpses, guts, the dried blood, the distinct fragrance of death and decay. Sometimes, the victims are very young – children, even. Sometimes, the bodies have been torn apart and demolished in savage ways, the killer trying to paint a gory picture that would haunt those who see it forever. Such sights had been enough to gross out even professional FBI Agents. It amused me the way they would gasp, cuss, turn around or cover their faces with their hand to protect themselves from the powerful smell. That never happened to me. Crime scenes never even made me curl my nose. If anything, I found them fascinating, but I would never let it show, of course. On the outside, I always looked cold, unphased and completely emotionless.

Getting into the FBI had to be the best decision I had ever made. As a criminal profiler, I was able to admire other people’s work, to relish in the beauty of death and murder that I so longed for. Each time I had to recreate a crime scene, I would imagine myself as the culprit. My vivid imagination and great power of empathy helped a lot. I could see myself slicing and dicing people on a weekly basis – sometimes even more often than that – and it was enough to satisfy my inner beast that craved violence and blood. It was the only thing that kept me from killing people. All the crimes that I investigated felt like crimes I had committed, but I was not going to be punished for it. On the contrary, I was going to be praised and seen as a hero for putting the real murderer behind bars and saving lives. I am proud to say that there had never been a case that I wasn’t able to solve.

“Well?” Beverly asked when I stepped out of the room of a badly mutilated pair of twins. “Did you crack it?”

“I think so,” I nodded. “It was someone close to them. Someone they knew very well. They left him in. They trusted him. That’s why there is no sign of struggle.”

“You think they allowed him to do this to them?” She seemed very disturbed. We started walking together down the hall, towards the exit of the house. “Who would do that?”

“I think this is not the first time this man has hurt them. I think it happened before, many times before, and they enjoyed it. They found some sort of sexual satisfaction from it.”

“So you’re saying this is some DS game gone wrong.”

“For them it was. He knew exactly what he was doing though. He wanted to kill them. I guess just causing them temporary harm wasn’t enough for him anymore.” I lit up a cigarette once we were outside, taking out a long puff. “They waited for their parents to leave town so they could bring this man in. Their family didn’t know about the relationship, though it’s been going on for quite a while. Few years, I suspect.” I gazed at the parents, who were talking to a police officer in front of the house. The mother was crying. The father looked devastated, his eyes glistening with tears, but he was trying to stay strong. ‘What idiots,’ I thought, before turning to Beverly again. “Check their bodies. I am sure you will be able to find old bruises and maybe even scars among all those fresh wounds and cuts. Most of the mutilation was performed after they were dead. This was supposed to be a fun night and it turned to shit.”

“Where did they find this guy? The internet?”

I shook my head. “I doubt it. Their father is a computer engineer. They wouldn’t risk it. This was a well kept secret, especially since they had recently turned 18. They were still underage when this started, possibly 15 or 16. I think it was someone close to them. A family friend or possibly even a relative.” That made her look even more disturbed. “Everyone close to them is a suspect. I’ll tell Jack to run checks on everyone. I’ll go along with him, if he asks me to.”

“He’ll probably ask you to.”

“I know.” I took one last puff from my cigarette before throwing it on the ground and stepping on it. “Speaking of running checks, did you do what I asked?”

“You mean did I run a check on your new therapist to see what he’s all about?” she asked with a smirk. The change of subject seemed to please her. “I did, actually. He’s quite the character. Renowned surgeon for many years, he gave up on his career and became a psychiatrist after he couldn’t save one of his patients. Never stepped out of line, never had any problems with the law. Most clear criminal record I have ever seen, to be honest. Not even something small, like a parking ticket.” She seemed impressed. I had known Beverly for long enough to know there weren’t too many people who could impress her. “He’s a good man, Will. You should trust him.”

“I do trust him,” I said. “Just wanted to be sure, you know? Alana left me with him without saying a word. I can’t go and talk about my problems, thoughts, and feelings to someone I know nothing about.”

“You have feelings? That’s news,” she sarcastically commented.

“You should alert the media,” I smiled. “I do have some feelings. They’re just hiding somewhere deep inside.”

She laughed and so did I. Like all of my colleagues (and all the people in my life, really), Beverly thought that I was a good man and that my cold behavior was just a shield that I used in order to remain calm and perform well during my job. In reality, it was the opposite. My kindness and good nature were the mask, the shield that protected the real me, the one whom I believed nobody would ever want to see.

“Oh, there’s one more thing,” she said, as I was getting ready to leave. I stopped in front of my car, my hand on the door’s handle. “Do you remember the Hobbs girl?”

I thought back to Garret Jacob Hobbs, a serial killer who was given the name of ‘Minnesota Shrike’ due to his habit of eating his victims or parts of them. I had been the one who solved that case, more than a year ago. I did remember that he had a girl, Abigail, his only surviving victim. “Yeah, I remember her. What about her?”

“Your new doctor, he adopted her.”

“He did?” I asked and she nodded. “Why?”

“She suffered a trauma after everything that had happened and she needed therapy. He was her doctor and, well, I guess they formed a bond because he is now legally her father. She lives in his house.” She wanted to add something more, but one of our colleagues called her name and she turned around to look at him before looking back at me with a small smile. “Thought you’d like to know,” she said, waved at me and left.

I got inside my car, quite struck about the news. That was the last thing I had expected to learn about Doctor Lecter. I had heard that Abigail Hobbs had been adopted, from people here and there who liked to keep me updated with the things that happened to those I saved, but I never cared enough to ask who adopted her or how she was doing. That girl had always been meaningless to me, although I did have a blast getting in her dad’s mind and reenacting all his crimes. I never talked to her after making sure that she was somewhere safe and I never thought about her after being told she’d been adopted, but there she was, crossing my path once again and offering me a connection with this man I was so intrigued about.

“Interesting…” I said out-loud to myself, after starting the car. “Very interesting.”

*

The next day, when Jack went to investigate the suspects, he did ask me to come along, just like Beverly had said he would. Over eight hours of talking to people, but it proved to be worth it. I was able to identify the murderer. It was the girl’s uncle – a tall, good looking man in his early 40s, well built and strong, very unlike his older brother, who had to try hard to stop himself from crying. I could see that it was him from the moment I saw him. His eyes gave him away. They were dark, empty and even though he was pretending that he cared and that he was sad about what happened to his nieces, it was obvious that he had not shed even one tear. Upon turning his house upside down at my request, the FBI had been able to find an album filled to the brim with sexual themed pictures of Ashley and Allison, dating from when they were as young as 12. The relationship had started a lot earlier than even I had suspected.

When he was arrested, the man threw me the most deranged look. There was fire burning in his eyes and I could see what he was thinking. If he could, he would have roasted me alive. I understood his feelings. I would have felt the same if I was the one getting arrested. For a moment, I pictured myself being handcuffed and thrown in a police car by the people I worked with, the people who counted on me and trusted me more than they trusted anyone else. I imagined what would happen if I would kill someone and they would found out; their reactions, their expressions, their disappointment, in me and in themselves, for not seeing it earlier. I could see it all in my mind and I didn’t like it. Not one bit.

Jack slapped my back friendly, pulling me out of my thoughts, and I looked at him. He was smiling. “You did great, Will, as always. We’re all very proud of you.”

I faked a smile back. “Thanks.”

We talked for a bit longer than I thought we would and before parting, he reminded me once more that he was proud of me. Jack was rough and harsh most of the time, with almost everyone. He was known for pushing his agents to go over their limit if it was what it would take to solve a case. In his mind, there was nothing that mattered more than getting the job done. Telling me that he was proud of me was almost as if he was saying he loved me. It meant even more than that, I think. He respected and treasured me and I appreciated that.

At the end of our first session together, Hannibal had asked me to come see him in his own office from then on. He had come to Alana’s just to see me, because of how short notice everything had been, but he saw no reason why he should keep seeing me there. I didn’t mind, even though his office was a lot farther away than Alana’s. He was worth the drive. I liked him and I had never really liked anyone. He was intelligent, distant and unimpressed by me. On the surface, that is. I knew that deep inside, he was at least curious by me, if not captivated already. I had been able to sense it.

It was 8 PM when I knocked at his door and he looked displeased when he opened up. “You are late,” he informed me, stepping out of the way to let me in. “You should have been here at 7:30.”

“I know, I am sorry,” I apologized, while taking my jacket off. “I was kept at work longer than I anticipated. I should have called and told you, though. It was my mistake.”

“Have a seat,” he offered, pointing me towards one of the big, comfortable looking armchairs that were standing in front of his desk, facing each other. 

I sat down, crossing my legs and watching him. He was wearing another three piece suit, a brown one with a white shirt and a dark purple tie that had an interesting pattern on it. I had never met anyone else that dressed the way he did. It was another one of those things that I liked about him.

“You’re staring at me,” he pointed out, sitting down in the armchair in front of me.

I left out a small laugh, turning my gaze away from him for a moment, before our eyes met again. “I was just wondering where you shop. You’re very stylish.”

“I will take that as a compliment,” he said. It was a compliment. “Most of my clothes are custom made, if you really care to know. Sometimes, I draw the designs myself. But you don’t strike me as the type of man who would care about such trivial details.”

“You don’t strike me as the type of man who would take in a serial killer’s daughter, either,” I replied. “But strange things happen sometimes.”

He smiled but he seemed a bit bothered. “Abigail is not a serial killer’s daughter anymore. She is my daughter. I should probably thank you. I know that you’re the one who saved her.”

I shrugged. “You can thank me, but saving her wasn’t my goal. Stopping her father was. She was… a collateral victory, let’s say.”

“You don’t care about saving lives,” he concluded. “It’s not rewarding enough for you, because you do not treasure people. What you want is to outsmart the criminals.”

“Yes.” My expression didn’t change but I was smiling on the inside. No one had ever realized that, not even Alana, who knew my job better than all my other doctors.

“Do you identify with those killers?”

“To a certain degree. They got caught. That would never happen to me. If I murdered someone, no one would ever find out.”

He was silent for a moment, just looking at me. He was trying to read me and I could tell. I could also tell that he wasn’t really finding much. “What do you want, Will? You have admitted to me during our first session that you don’t believe therapy really works.”

“I did, but you said that you could actually help me. Did you change your mind already?”

“No. I think everyone can be helped and that everyone can change. However, there needs to be a desire of improvement in order to achieve that change and I do not believe you have such a desire. I don’t even think you see your own problems.”

“My father thought that I was evil,” I said, taking my gaze from him and staring at the wall behind him instead. “I had a bad habit of destroying all the toys around me in ways that he found bizarre and I pretty much tortured our neighbor’s cat. When I was in first grade, a child fell out of a tree and broke his head. There was blood everywhere. All the children screamed and cried, they were scared, but I just sat there laughing. I somehow wasn’t aware that that boy was in pain or that he could die. I just thought it was hilarious.”

“Typical childhood signs of Psychopathy,” he declared.

I looked at him again. That was a new term. I had never been diagnosed with that before. “Is that what you think? You think I’m a Psychopath?”

“A high functioning one, yes. Did none of your teachers realize?”

“They complained once or twice about my lack of emotions and about the fact that I didn’t seem to be able to connect with anyone from my class. But I was an A+ student all my life, so they liked me. They didn’t pay too much attention to my defects.”

“But your father did,” Hannibal concluded. I just nodded in approval. “Is that why the abuse started?”

“He was trying to fix me.”

“What did he do to you?”

I paused, looking at the floor. When someone asked me that question, I just claimed that I couldn’t remember, but it was a lie. I remembered it. Every detail and every second of it. I didn’t feel like lying to Hannibal – mostly because I thought he’d realize that I was lying – but I didn’t want to tell him the truth either. “I don’t want to talk about it,” I eventually said.

“We will have to talk about it, sooner or later.”

“Let’s make that later.”

“Does it hurt to think about those memories?”

I shook my head slowly, pondering on it for a second. “No. It’s not pain, really. It’s more like…” I thought of the perfect word to go for what I was feeling. “Frustration.”

“Because you couldn’t protect yourself from the abuse?”

“Because I couldn’t get revenge,” I corrected him.

There was another short moment of silence and I moved a bit around, trying to get in a more comfortable position. The armchair was really soft and warm, so it wasn’t that I wasn’t sitting well. The lack of nicotine was the reason for my discomfort. My brain were screaming for a cigarette, but I knew he wouldn’t let me smoke in there so I didn’t even ask.

“How is your father now, Will?” Hannibal asked.

“Rotting, I assume,” I answered amused. “He died almost ten years ago. Cancer.”

“Got to him before you could.” I laughed and he smirked. “Is that why you want to kill people? Because you wanted to kill him and you couldn’t?”

I laughed again, louder this time. “No. I am not that simple. I can see what you’re thinking, Doctor Lecter, and you are wrong. I did not ‘turn this way’, whatever ‘this way’ is, because of what my father did to me.”

“Does it bother you that you’re ‘this way’?”

“Not really. It used to. I used to desire to be like everyone else, thinking that I lacked something, that there was something terribly broken inside of me. But with time, I came to realize that there’s nothing wrong with me. I am perfectly fine.”

“Then why are you here?”

“As you guessed in our first session, I like to see what people think about me,” I said. “It entertains me. But that’s not the only reason. As a criminal profiler, I see gruesome things daily. And, as everyone knows, I have this history of child abuse. My boss thinks very highly of me, but he does insist that I see a therapist a few times a week. It helps him sleep better at night. And I take a lot of medicine in order to sleep at all, medicine I couldn’t get without a psychiatrist.”

“Alana thinks that you suffer of PTSD, which also causes your insomnia. I assume that’s the same thing your boss believes?” I nodded. “So you don’t want me to help you get better. You want me to completely ignore your real problems and pretend to treat you of PTSD, which you don’t even have.”

“If you don’t want to do it, I can always go to another psychiatrist. But Alana left me in your care.”

He looked displeased again, like when he had opened the door for me. It was some sort of passive irritation. He knew how to control himself very well, just like I did. “You obviously know exactly how to simulate symptoms of trauma. Alana is not a bad doctor. She wouldn’t have diagnosed you with PTSD if she wasn’t sure you have it. Why didn’t you try to pretend with me?”

“I could have, but I chose not to because you saw through me. That never happened before. I liked it. I got so used to lying, I didn’t even consider that it might feel good to be honest for a change. And I know you won’t tell anyone.”

“As your doctor, our conversations are entirely private, that is true. But if I feel like you present a danger to society, it is my obligation to inform the authorities.”

I wasn’t sure if he was informing me or threatening me. It didn’t matter anyway. “You won’t do that.”

My answer took him by surprise. “How can you be so sure?”

“Because you’re a good man, Doctor Lecter, and you see the best in people. People like me… and Abigail Hobbs.”

“Abigail is not a serial killer,” he calmly stated. “Her father was.”

“She might not have killed anyone, but she helped. She was the bait. I am sure that she confessed that to you, in one of the many therapy sessions you had with her.”

“She did,” he admitted. “Does the FBI know?” He seemed concerned.

“Oh no, they don’t. She’d be in jail if they did. Only I know. And you, of course. I started suspecting it while reenacting one of her father’s crimes. I became sure when I met her for the first time, at the hospital, when she recovered. Her eyes told me everything.” I looked right at him and I could see that he was impressed. Worried too, but mostly impressed. “It was your obligation to inform the authorities about Abigail being an accessory to murder, but for some reason, you didn’t.”

“She is a good, young girl and I considered that she deserves a second chance.”

“I am sure she does,” I approved. “And I will not tell anyone anything either. Just like you won’t tell them anything about me or what I say to you.”

“Will–” He started.

“I am sure you wouldn’t want her to be arrested, would you?” I cut through him. “I mean, she is your daughter now, isn’t she?”

I almost expected him to get angry. I would have been angry if I was him. But he remained calm, even if I had clearly pushed all his buttons. “Very well,” he said, letting out a hard breath of defeat. “You have my word of honor that I will not discuss you with anyone, no matter how dangerous you might become. You can tell me anything and I will take it with me to the grave.”

“Excellent,” I said, a bright smile appearing on my face. “So, what else do you want to know about me, Doctor?”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just so you know, my version of Molly is pretty much an OC. The only thing she has in common with the cannon Molly from the book, movies and TV Show is the same name. I felt like I should mention that XD Anyway, I hope you guys like this chapter!

Before meeting Hannibal, my therapy sessions had been tedious at best, if not highly obnoxious. I used to see them as a formality that I had no choice but to comply to, in order to please those around me and maintain my carefully crafted mask. Even Alana used to bore me to no end, the time spent with her being redeemed only by her sex appeal. There had been doctors that I had seen before joining the FBI who bothered me so much with their ridiculous questions and tests that I would be boiling inside, planning their murder in my mind as they were talking. But Hannibal was different than all of them; so different that I couldn’t wait until I got to see him again. My visits to his office became the highlight of my weeks. 

Out of all his qualities – because Hannibal had many qualities – it was his detached and unapproachable personality that I admired most. That was the first thing I had felt from him when we had met: elegance, distance and severity. Many of the psychiatrists I had come across adopted that sort of behavior, but it was a fake, a bad imitation and I could see through it. If anything, it made me dislike them more. Hannibal was not mimicking though. His coldness and lack of emotions was authentic and I could relate to it. He wasn’t as empty inside as I was (it was obvious to me that he loved Abigail Hobbs, for example, while I had never loved anyone) but it was close enough. It was closer than anyone had ever managed to get.   
  
We were equals. He was just like me, I was sure of it. Together, we’d make a perfect team. Together, we would be unbeatable. All I had to do was make him see what I saw, make him realize the beauty of murder. I knew that I could do it. He had so much potential.   
  
“Everyone has thought about killing someone, one way or another,” I had told him during our Friday session, two weeks after I had started seeing him regularly.  
  
“I haven’t,” he had replied and I had smiled.   
  
I smiled because there was a long pause between my statement and his answer, because his gaze drifted away from mine, looking blankly into space for a moment, because his lower lip quivered a bit before muttering those two words. I smiled because I knew that he was lying. He had thought about it, but he didn’t want to admit it, just like I would have never admitted it to anyone but him.  
  
Sometimes I felt as if our conversations made him feel uncomfortable and it wasn’t because of the things I was saying, the detailed sceneries of brutal murder from my mind that I was describing to him, but rather because of something that I was slowly awakening inside him. I wasn’t sure if it was desire or curiosity, but it did not matter anyway. Both were welcomed and both worked well to fulfill my ultimate goal. I was getting him there, slowly but surely, and he was unaware of it.  
  
“You’ve kind of been ignoring me these past two weeks,” Molly said to me that Sunday morning. She didn’t seem upset about it, but there was a hint of accusation in her voice. “What have you been doing?”  
  
“I’ve just been working. I’m not seeing someone else, if that’s what worries you.”  
  
She smiled and bit her lower lip. That was what worried her. She was wearing one of my shirts with just her panties underneath. The first three buttons were opened, revealing a small part of her soft breasts. Her long, wavy brown hair looked almost blonde in the sunlight that was coming through the window. She had no makeup on and she had not brushed her hair yet, but she was still beautiful. Molly was always beautiful. I had pictured her death countless times, both in dreams and while I was awake, and I thought she looked beautiful even as a corpse. Her beauty was the only thing that kept me staying with her.  
  
“The thing is that your job was always stressful, but you used to be able to make time for me,” she complained, pushing her hair behind her ear and staring at her cup of coffee. “Something changed since you started going to that new therapist. Are you… attracted to him?”  
  
I left out a dry chuckle and looked at her through the smoke lines that were coming from my cigarette. In a way, she was right. I was attracted to Hannibal, but it wasn’t physical attraction. It was a lot more than that. “Come here.” She smiled once more and got up from the chair, sitting in my lap and wrapping her arms around my neck as I wrapped mine around her waist. “You know that you’re the only one for me, don’t you?”   
  
“I hope I am,” she replied, in almost a whisper, her fingers playing with the collar of my shirt.  
  
“You are. There’s no one else I want. Hannibal is a good doctor and he’s been helping me a lot with my problems, but that’s all. I’ve got no interest in him outside of that.”  
  
She closed her eyes and kissed me so I kissed her back. Her lips were wet from how much she had been biting on them. She moved her hands from my neck up to my head, her long fingers tangling in my hair. I didn’t really like that, but I didn’t stop her. Sometimes, the best way to control someone is to make them think that they are the ones who are in control.  
  
“I have to go,” I said, after we stopped kissing. “I have to meet Jack so he can give me the file of the new case we’re working on.”  
  
She pouted in disappointment, holding onto me tighter. “Can’t he come here to give you the file? I thought you two are close.”  
  
I giggled and caressed her head, before gently pushing her off of my lap and getting up. “Jack and I are friendly and I guess you could go as far as to call us ‘close’, but he is still my boss. We may go out for drinks every now and then but he is not going to come to my house to drop me the file. So, like it or not, you will have to wait for me for a while.”   
  
She sighed but I knew that she would wait. She always did. “I will go grocery shopping and I’ll prepare something delicious for us to eat. You will be back by lunch time, right?”  
  
“Yeah, of course,” I assured her. “You should also take the dogs for a walk. They need some exercise.”  
  
“I’ll make sure they get some.”  
  
I faked a smile and kissed her forehead. She was definitely useful to have around.

*

People generally hate going to work during the weekends, but I actually enjoyed it very much. It was the only time when the building was not packed with FBI agents and trainees. The less I had to socialize, the better. Too much fake smiling made my face hurt.  
  
I was ready to knock on the door when I heard a familiar voice coming from inside Jack’s office: Hannibal’s voice. Why was he there? I looked at the watch. It was only 9 AM. Since there was no one else around, I pressed my ear against the wooden surface, listening closely.  
  
“Will has an amazing power, Jack,” Hannibal was saying. “Pure empathy. He can assume your point of view, mine and everyone else’s. It’s an incredible gift, which is why he’s so good at what he does.”  
  
“He is the best Criminal Profiler I’ve ever had.” I could hear the pride ringing in Jack’s voice even through the door.  
  
“But I believe it can also be dangerous. Perception is a tool that’s pointed on both ends. I don’t think it’s healthy for Will to be involved in all these violent cases. The criminals you have him investigate are getting the best of him.”  
  
I squeezed my hand into a fist, a small shiver passing through me. _‘What the Hell are you doing, Hannibal?’_  
  
“You want me to fire him?” Jack asked.  
  
“No, that’s not what I am trying to suggest. All I’m saying is that you should be more careful with the cases you give him. I’m sure he’s not the only Criminal Profiler you have, even if he might be the best one.”  
  
“It takes Will a day or two to solve cases that others would work months on. There are cases he’s solved by just looking at the file, without even visiting the crime scene. Doing what you suggest would mean risking lives and I need a strong reason to even consider it. What is your reason, Doctor Lecter? Has Will done or said anything to you that you found problematic? Is his PTSD getting worse?”  
  
There was a small moment of silence that felt endless and made me want to open that door and stop the conversation, but I decided not to. I was too curious to hear what Hannibal would say. I wanted to know if he was going to betray me.  
  
“No, there’s nothing wrong,” Hannibal eventually said. “He is actually making progress. He’s been telling me that he sleeps better lately.”  
  
“Then why are you concerned?”  
  
“I just don’t want him to get hurt, that’s all. I think that in the long run, all these things could catch up to him and harm him.”  
  
I could hear Jack laughing and I let out a hard breath of relief. _‘Good boy, Hannibal.’_  
  
“You’ve grown attached to him, haven’t you? Alana did as well after she started treating him. I don’t know what it is about Will that gets everyone lit up so fast, but I am happy to know you care for him so much. Don’t worry. I would never give him a case that I thought he couldn’t handle. He’s been doing this for quite some time now. He’ll be fine.”  
  
 _‘Thank God for Jack’s blind faith in me,’_ I thought, while I finally took a step back and knocked. Jack yelled a loud ‘Enter!’ and I pushed the door open, giving him and Hannibal the best smile I had in store. “Good morning.”  
  
“Will!” Jack said, getting up from his chair and smiling back. “It’s good to see you. Doctor Lecter was just telling me that you’ve started making progress.”  
  
 _‘That’s not all he was telling you.’_ I looked at Hannibal for a second. He was quiet and expressionless, as always, but his amber eyes gazed right into mine were telling me that he had no idea I was coming there. He had expected to be alone with Jack until he’d leave and my presence made him feel uneasy and tense. I could tell that he was wondering how much of their conversation I had overheard.  
  
“Hannibal has been helping me a lot,” I said, looking up at Jack. “I’ve never felt better. I believe that I will keep doing my therapy with him even after Alana returns. I doubt she’ll mind it.”  
  
“Of course she won’t. She only wants the best for you.”   
  
“So what is this new case you want me to work on?”   
  
“Right.” Jack’s smile disappeared, replaced by a serious look and a mixture of anger and concern. He pulled the file out of the drawer of his desk and handed it to me. “Five people were killed in California last week. The killer didn’t leave any evidence and there is no connection between the victims, at least none that we could find. I know you hate traveling so I won’t make you go there, but all the information we have is in that file, as well as pictures taken at the crime scene. Maybe you can see something the others have missed.”  
  
“Wow!” I said as I opened the file and looked at the pictures. Those victims sustained wounds I had never seen before in reality, just in movies and history books. It was sickening in a beautiful way. “Medieval torture, huh? That’s new.”  
  
“Technically, it’s old,” Hannibal commented and I almost laughed. “Torture was used as punishment in medieval times. Maybe the killer knew the victims personally and he was taking revenge.”  
  
“Or maybe he just knows they’re all guilty of something and he’s punishing them for it without having any personal connection with them,” I suggested. “What sort of crimes earned you this kind of punishment back in the day?”  
  
“Treason, witchcraft, breaking the law and religious crimes,” Hannibal listed them for me. “Blasphemers and atheists were especially cruelly punished for their lack of faith.”  
  
“California is a pretty godless place,” I said, still staring at the pictures. “Maybe that’s the connection. Maybe none of them believed in God.”  
  
“I don’t know their religious beliefs but I will find out and let you know.”  
  
I raised my head when I heard Jack speak and I closed the file. “Yes. Please, do that. I will take this home with me anyway. To see what I can see.”  
  
He smiled at me. “Thank you, Will. Maybe Doctor Lecter could help you, if he wants. You  two seem to work well together.”  
  
“We sure do,” I agreed, looking at Hannibal. He looked down, avoiding my gaze.

*

“What the Hell was that?” I asked Hannibal, as we were walking out the building together.  
  
“What are you talking about?” he asked back, pretending to be confused.  
  
“You almost betrayed me, that’s what I’m talking about. ‘It’s not safe for Will to be involved in these violent cases.’” I tried to imitate his accent. “That’s some bullshit.”  
  
He let out a heard breath. “You were listening.”  
  
“Yeah, I was. I thought we had a deal.”  
  
“We do. I didn’t say anything, did I? Jack called me here to ask me what I think about you. I may have gotten a bit carried away but he clearly still trusts you.”  
  
“That’s because he’s an idiot, not because you’re a good friend.”  
  
He was silent for a moment and when we stopped in the parking lot and stared at each other, I realized that he looked conflicted. “I wasn’t aware that you see me as your friend. I thought you despise everyone.”  
  
“You are starting to make me question your intelligence and I don’t appreciate that.” I lit up a cigarette and took a deep puff. I was angry at him and I had not been fully aware of it until after we had left Jack’s office. “If I despised you, I wouldn’t have chosen you as the only person with whom to share my true thoughts and feelings. I trust you, damn it.”  
  
He looked at me with a mixture of regret and sympathy. He realized that he had screwed up. “I am sorry if I made you feel betrayed. That was not my intention. If you heard the conversation I had with Jack, then you know that I told him I’m worried for you. That was not a lie. I do worry. I don’t want you to do something that could hurt you, Will.”  
  
“I don’t want to hurt myself, I want to hurt others,” I whispered to him, moving a bit closer so that he could hear me. “And I won’t do it anyway. I’ve been holding back for years, I can keep doing it.”  
  
“You won’t be able to tame the beast inside you forever. It is bound to break loose and I think it will be sooner than you believe. Your dreams have started getting more vivid and detailed, haven’t they?”  
  
“How do you know?” It was true, but I have not told him that.  
  
“Your passion for crime has increased. I told Jack that you are getting better, but you are only getting worse. I don’t think I’m a good influence for you. Sharing all of this with me has made you desire it more. The longer you stay without your mask on, the more you want to assume your true nature.”  
  
“I am feeling better though. I’ve not had a nightmare in weeks. Just dreams about murder. I still can’t sleep without the pills, but even so. You can’t say that’s not an improvement.”  
  
“It’s not.”  
  
He looked concerned. That wasn’t what I wanted or needed. It was infuriating but I didn’t want to blow up in his face and make things worse. I threw my unfinished cigarette on the ground and stepped on it with my foot, pressing on it hard to put it out. “I will see you tomorrow at 7:30. And if Jack asks you to come see him again, please inform me. I don’t like being double played.”  
  
“Will –“  
  
“Jack doesn’t know me, but you don’t know me either,” I said, while opening the door to my car. “Not fully. Not yet.”  
  
I stepped inside, slammed the door and started the engine. Hannibal just sat there, looking at me. I could see him in the rearview mirror, just sitting there as if paralyzed, until my car disappeared from his view. _‘Is he scared of me?’_ I wondered. I had never sensed fear coming from him, no matter how tense the situation got between us or how horrifying the things I was telling him were. I had sensed everything else except fear. There was even some sort of attachment, which he had proven to be real through his worry. _‘No, he’s not scared,’_ I answered myself. _‘He’s intrigued.’_


End file.
